#Armstreaty Media Digest no1: “Seize the day on an ATT: SIPRI”

The ATT Monitor brings you two highlights from media coverage of the process towards an Arms Trade Treaty.

1) Stockholm International Peace Research Institute calls on States to seize the day on the ATT in DefenceWeb.

2) Radio Fiji reports that Fiji Defence Ministry are concerned about implementation capacity with regards to the ATT and releated regional treaties.

Firstly, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says next month’s penultimate meeting of the Preparatory Committee (PrepComm) for an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in New York will have a direct bearing on whether an effective, robust and broadly accepted treaty “or indeed any treaty at all” emerges at next year’s United Nations Conference on an ATT.

“A strong and widely ratified ATT could close the loopholes left by the current patchwork of national, regional and multilateral arms transfer control arrangements. Not only could it establish common, legally binding rules and standards for a majority of states but, crucially, it could ensure that state and non-states entities are subject to checks at each of the various stages of an international arms transfer. This would increase state control over—and responsibility for—the arms being transferred, and thus reduce the chances of them being diverted to undesirable end-users. However, without proper discussion of these controls in the upcoming PrepComm, there is a real danger that this opportunity will be missed,” the authors aver.

Secondly, Radio Fiji reports Defence Ministry senior official Joji Washington saying that the state – consisting of over 300 islands – is not ready to sign the Asia Pacific Arms and Ammunition Treaty because it does not have the resources to fully monitor the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone says. This is one of the issues his delegation intends bring to the attention of the up-coming Arms Trade Treaty prep comm as it relates to implementation provisions of an eventual treaty.

The Control Arms campaign is a global civil society alliance that has advocated for a bulletproof Arms Trade Treaty for over a decade. Made up of over 100 charity, nonprofit, and nongovernmental groups throughout the world, Control Arms continues to strive for a world where deadly weapons are kept out of the wrong hands through a regulated arms trade.